Upload files to Google Drive

Users can upload any type of file to Google Drive and convert certain types of files to a web-based Google document format—a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide. See Manually upload files and folders to Google Drive in the user help center to learn more.

Storage and limits

If you have Google Apps for Work, each user in your domain has 30 GB of storage for Google Drive, which is shared with Gmail and Google Photos. (For Google Apps free edition, each user has 15 GB of storage.) You or your users can purchase additional storage.

Each file that a user uploads can be up to 5 TB. Usage information is shown to users when they upload a document. All other size limits apply.

Administrator controls

Google Drive: When you enable the Drive service in the control panel, your users can upload and sync any file to their accounts (you can't disable the upload and sync features separately).

APIs: Google Apps for Work customers can use an API to add, edit, and remove files in batch, as well as to manage and generate information about their users' documents (however, it doesn't generate quota usage information at this time). For example, administrators can use the API to upload a large number of files and share these files with all users in their domain. Learn more about the API upload feature.

Sharing

If you share an uploaded file that hasn't been converted to a web-based Google document, (such as a Doc, Sheet, or Slide), both the "view" and "edit" permissions allow users to only download the file. Users can collaborate only on web-based Google documents.

Security

File types: Users can upload any type of file, including executables (for example, .exe or .vbs) and compressed files.

Virus scanning: Google Drive scans a file for viruses before the file is downloaded or shared. If a virus is detected, users can't share the file with others, send the infected file via email, or convert it to a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide, and they'll receive a warning if they attempt these operations. The owner can download the virus-infected file, but only after acknowledging the risk of doing so.

Only files smaller than 25 MB can be scanned for viruses. For larger files, a warning is displayed saying that the file can't be scanned.

Content policy: All Google Drive files, including uploaded or converted files, follow the same program policy. Learn more.